PLEASE NOTE:
*
CCNet CLIMATE SCARES & CLIMATE CHANGE - 3 October 2001
======================================================
"I'm an old Greenpeace, left-wing kind of guy and thought
basically,
yes, things are getting worse and worse. Then I read an interview
with Julian Simon, [the late] American economist, that tells us
things are
actually getting better and better, contrary to common knowledge.
I
thought, No, it can't be true. But he said 'Go check it
yourself,' ... so
I'll have to get his book, to see that it was probably wrong. And
it was
sufficiently good, his book, and it looked sufficiently
substantiated that
it would probably be fun to debunk. So I got some of my best
students
together and we did a study course in the fall of '97.... We
wanted to
show, you know, this is entirely wrong, this is right-wing
American
propaganda. As it turned out over the next couple months, we were
getting debunked for the most part."
--Bjorn Lomborg, VOANews, 1 October 2001
"The IPCC Summary continues on to an outlandish claim:
"By contrast,
during the period 1958 to 1978, surface temperature trends were
near zero,
while trends for the lowest 8 km (5 miles) of the atmosphere were
near
0.2 C/decade." If this were true, then those who have
claimed that the
climate has changed by human actions would have their strongest
proof. For
then the troposphere did warm and surface temperatures didn't,
just as the
models suggest. Only this just did not happen. The claim is an
error, and no minor one for such a prestigious and important
report.
The troposphere showed no warming trend, or perhaps cooled
slightly,
during that period."
--Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas, Tech Central Station, 1
Oct. 2001
(1) LITTLE ICE AGE - ARTIC
C02 Science Magazine, 3 October 2001
(2) THE LITTLE ICE AGE IN THE ARABIAN SEA
CO2 Science Magazine, 3 October 2001
(3) LITTLE ICE AGE - SOUTH AMERICA
CO2 Science Magazine, 26 September 2001
(4) THE MEDIEVAL WARM PERIOD AND LITTLE ICE AGE IN RUSSIA
CO2 Science Magazine, 26 September 2001
(5) LITTLE ICE AGE - EUROPE
CO2 Science Magazine, 19 September 2001
(6) LITTLE ICE AGE - AFRICA
CO2 Science Magazine, 12 September 2001
(7) A SOLAR-INFLUENCED LITTLE ICE AGE AND MEDIEVAL WARM PERIOD IN
TROPICAL
VENEZUELA
CO2 Science Magazine, 12 September 2001
(8) GLOBAL WARMING FACTS, CONSENSUS MELT AWAY
TechCentralStation, 1 October 2001
(9) DANISH SCIENTIST CLAIMS KYOTO TREATY USELESS
VOANews, 1 October 2001
===============
(1) LITTLE ICE AGE - ARTIC
>From C02 Science Magazine, 3 October 2001
http://www.co2science.org/subject/a/summaries/arcticiceage.htm
What does modern research have to tell us about climate change in
the Arctic
over the recent and more distant past?
Dahl-Jensen et al. (1998) reconstructed the temperature history
of the
Greenland Ice Sheet over the past 50,000 years from temperatures
retrieved
from two boreholes. Relative to the present, temperatures
during the
Medieval Warm Period were about 1°C warmer than now, while
temperatures
during the Little Ice Age were 0.5-0.7°C cooler.
Subsequent to this last
major climate anomaly, the authors note that "temperatures
reached a maximum
around 1930," and that "temperatures have decreased
during the last
decades."
Moore et al. (2001) analyzed sediment cores from Donard Lake on
Baffin
Island in Canada to produce a 1240-year record (from 750 to 1990)
of average
summer temperature for that region. Relative to the
long-term mean,
temperature elevations on the order of 1°C occurred around 1000
and 1100,
while temperatures rose by nearly 2°C from 1195 to 1220.
Thereafter, an
abrupt cooling occurred around 1375, representing the onset of
the Little
Ice Age, which lasted some 400 years in this region.
Warming was then
experienced from 1800 to 1900, whereupon temperatures returned to
Little Ice
Age conditions until about 1950. It then warmed for about
20 years, after
which temperatures tended to become cooler right up to the end of
the record
(1990).
Kasper and Allard (2001) studied ice wedges (a form of ground ice
in
permafrost regions that deforms and cracks the soil) near
Salluit, northern
Quebec, developing a qualitative description of climate there
over the past
4,000 years. Again, they observed a warm medieval period
that lasted to
about the year 1030, followed by the coldest period of the entire
4,000-year
record, which lasted from 1500 to 1900. Thereafter, it
warmed until
approximately 1946, whereupon cold conditions returned for the
last half of
the 20th century.
In addition to clearly indicating the presence of both the
Medieval Warm
Period and the Little Ice Age in the Arctic, these studies
suggest that this
northernmost part of the globe has actually cooled over the last
several
decades. This finding is just the opposite of what is
universally predicted
by state-of-the-art climate models. However, it is
consistent with
real-world temperature measurements from across the entire
region, which
also depict a cooling over this period (Przybylak, 2000).
In conclusion, the story from the "top of the world" -
where CO2-induced
global warming is supposed to be most strongly expressed,
according to
essentially all climate models - is abundantly clear: it's just
not there.
But the historic Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age, which
climate
alarmists are trying to relegate to the realm of the "never
happened,"
clearly were there. Try as they might, the forces so set on
making us
change the way we obtain and utilize energy just can't change the
testimony
of nature.
References
Dahl-Jensen, D., Mosegaard, K., Gundestrup, N., Clow, G.D.,
Johnsen, S.J.,
Hansen, A.W. and Balling, N. 1998. Past temperatures
directly from the
Greenland Ice Sheet. Science 282: 268-271.
Kasper, J.N. and Allard, M. 2001. Late-Holocene
climatic changes as
detected by the growth and decay of ice wedges on the southern
shore of
Hudson Strait, northern Quebec, Canada. The Holocene 11:
563-577.
Moore, J.J., Hughen, K.A., Miller, G.H. and Overpeck, J.T.
2001. Little
Ice Age recorded in summer temperature reconstruction from varved
sediments
of Donard Lake, Baffin Island, Canada. Journal of
Paleolimnology 25:
503-517.
Przybylak, R. 2000. Temporal and spatial variation of
surface air
temperature over the period of instrumental observations in the
Arctic.
International Journal of Climatology 20: 587-614.
Copyright © 2001. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide
and Global Change
=============
(2) THE LITTLE ICE AGE IN THE ARABIAN SEA
>From CO2 Science Magazine, 3 October 2001
http://www.co2science.org/journal/2001/v4n40c1.htm
Reference
Doose-Rolinski, H., Rogalla, U., Scheeder, G., Luckge, A. and von
Rad, U.
2001. High-resolution temperature and evaporation changes
during the late
Holocene in the northeastern Arabian Sea. Paleoceanography
16: 358-367.
What was done
The authors analyzed a complete and annually-laminated sediment
core
extracted from the bed of the northeastern Arabian Sea just south
southeast
of Karachi, Pakistan, using oxygen isotopes of planktonic
foraminifera and
measurements of long-chain alkenones to derive a detailed sea
surface
temperature and evaporation history for the area.
What was learned
The greatest temperature fluctuations of the 5,000-year record
occurred
between 4600 and 3300 years ago and between 500 and 200 years
ago, which
periods were also the coldest of the record. Of the latter
interval, the
authors note that "in northern and central Europe this
period is known as
the 'Little Ice Age'," and they say that their results
"confirm [the] global
effects" of this unique climatic excursion. Also apparent in
their
temperature history is a period of sustained warmth that
prevailed between
about 1250 and 950 years ago, which corresponds nicely with the
Medieval
Warm Period of northern and central Europe.
What it means
Once again, and contrary to the claims of certain climate
revisionists, new
evidence continues to confirm the global nature of both the
Medieval Warm
Period and the Little Ice Age. This evidence also indicates that
neither the
current state of earth's climate nor its rate of change are
anything out of
the ordinary, which is also contrary to the claims of the
politically-correct revisionists.
Copyright © 2001. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and
Global Change
=============
(3) LITTLE ICE AGE - SOUTH AMERICA
>From CO2 Science Magazine, 26 September 2001
http://www.co2science.org/subject/s/summaries/southamericaiceage.htm
In an attempt to rewrite climatic history, certain scientists
have claimed
the Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period were neither global
phenomena
nor strong enough where they did occur to have a discernable
influence on
mean global air temperature, in order to make the putative
warming of the
last part of the 20th century appear highly unusual, which they
equate with
anthropogenic-induced, which they associate with the historical
rise in the
air's CO2 content, which gives them reason to call for dramatic
reductions
in the use of fossil fuels, which we believe to be
unwarranted. Hence, we
continually search the emerging scientific literature for
evidence that the
Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period were truly global
events. This
brief review summarizes what we have learned about the Little Ice
Age in
South America over the past few years.
Proceeding alphabetically, the climatic history of the central
region of
Argentina was reviewed by Cioccale (1999), who reports that some
400 years
prior to the start of the last millennium, a climatic
"improvement"
occurred, characterized by "a marked increase of
environmental suitability,
under a relatively homogeneous climate." As a result
of this climatic
amelioration, the people that had previously lived in the lower
valleys
"ascended to higher areas in the Andes." Around
1320 AD, however, a
transition to the stressful and extreme climate of the Little Ice
Age began.
The initial cold pulse of this period, which extended from the
first decades
of the 15th century to the end of the 16th century, was
accompanied by "a
decrease in environmental suitability," such that
"vegetation began to
suffer the consequences of this climatic deterioration."
This first cold pulse, according to Cioccale, was followed by an
intermediate benign period "of major climatic stability,
with very scarce
extraordinary floods and few droughts." From the start
of the 18th century
and lasting until the beginning of the 19th century, however,
"glaciers in
the Southern Andes underwent their main advance and the plains of
the
central region of the country suffered intense
droughts." In addition,
Cioccale says "the intense cold caused a lowering of the
upper limits of
cultivation ... and residents abandoned the towns in the
mountains." These
two cold pulses, in the author's view, "can be related to
the Sporer and
Maunder Minimums respectively," implicating solar
variability as their
primary cause.
Also working in Argentina, Valero-Garces et al. (2000) studied
saline lake
sediments obtained from the southernmost part of the Altiplano -
a
north-south trending high volcanic plateau that runs from
tropical to
subtropical latitudes of South America. These researchers
discovered "abrupt
paleohydrological and paleoclimatic changes synchronous to the
onset and
termination of the Little Ice Age." So clear was the
message of their data,
they unequivocally stated, as their final conclusion, that
"the Little Ice
Age stands as a significant climatic event in the Altiplano and
South
America."
Progressing to Chile, Harrison and Winchester (2000) studied
19th- and
20th-century fluctuations of the Arco, Colonia and Arenales
glaciers on the
eastern side of the Hielo Patagonico Norte in the southern part
of the
country. These glaciers, along with four others on the
western side of the
ice field, began to retreat from their Little Ice Age maximum
positions
somewhere between 1850 and 1880, continuing to recede
"through the first
half of the 20th century with various still-stands and
oscillations between
1925 and 1960," with the retreat increasing since the 1960s
as the earth
continues to rebound from this significant global climatic
anomaly.
In southern Peru, Goodman et al. (2001) analyzed the soil
properties of
several glacial moraines located in the Cordillera Vilcanota and
Quelccaya
Ice Cap regions. Following the Holocene Climatic Optimum,
they detected
evidence of several episodes of glacial advance; but as they
describe it,
"the most extensive advance during the late Holocene in
southern Peru
occurred during the Little Ice Age," dated to around 400
years before
present in the Cordillera Vilcanota and 300 years ago in the
vicinity of the
Quelccaya Ice Cap.
Closing out our alphabetical journey of discovery, Haug et al.
(2001)
examined an ocean sediment core retrieved from the Cariaco Basin
on the
Northern Shelf of Venezuela. Analyses of titanium and iron
concentrations
within the core enabled them to determine that higher
precipitation was the
norm during the Medieval Warm Period from 1050 to 700 years ago,
while drier
conditions prevailed during the Little Ice Age from 550 to 200
years ago.
"These regional changes in precipitation," they say,
"are best explained by
shifts in the mean latitude of the Atlantic Intertropical
Convergence Zone,"
which "can be explained by the Holocene history of
insolation."
In conclusion, it is clear that the emerging scientific
literature continues
to report ever more evidence for the occurrence of both the
Medieval Warm
Period and Little Ice Age in South America, in contradiction of
the claims
of climate alarmists that these climatic intervals were localized
to regions
about the North Atlantic Ocean. Ongoing research also
continues to suggest
that the phenomenon behind these millennial-scale climatic
oscillations is
solar variability, which leaves the anthropogenic CO2 explanation
"out in
the cold."
References
Cioccale, M.A. 1999. Climatic fluctuations in the
Central Region of
Argentina in the last 1000 years. Quaternary International
62: 35-47.
Goodman, A.Y., Rodbell, D.T., Seltzer, G.O. and Mark, B.G.
2001.
Subdivision of glacial deposits in southeastern Peru based on
pedogenic
development and radiometric ages. Quaternary Research 56:
31-50.
Harrison, S. and Winchester, V. 2000. Nineteenth- and
twentieth-century
glacier fluctuations and climatic implications in the Arco and
Colonia
Valleys, Hielo Patagonico Norte, Chile. Arctic, Antarctic,
and Alpine
Research 32: 55-63.
Haug, G.H., Hughen, K.A., Sigman, D.M., Peterson, L.C. and Rohl,
U. 2001.
Southward migration of the intertropical convergence zone through
the
Holocene. Science 293: 1304-1308.
Valero-Garces, B.L., Delgado-Huertas, A., Ratto, N., Navas, A.
and Edwards,
L. 2000. Paleohydrology of Andean saline lakes from
sedimentological and
isotopic records, Northwestern Argentina. Journal of
Paleolimnology 24:
343-359.
Copyright © 2001. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide
and Global Change
==============
(4) THE MEDIEVAL WARM PERIOD AND LITTLE ICE AGE IN RUSSIA
>From CO2 Science Magazine, 26 September 2001
http://www.co2science.org/journal/2001/v4n39c2.htm
Reference
Demezhko, D.Yu. and Shchapov, V.A. 2001. 80,000 years
ground surface
temperature history inferred from the temperature-depth log
measured in the
superdeep hole SG-4 (the Urals, Russia). Global and
Planetary Change 29:
167-178.
What was done
Whereas most boreholes do not exceed 1 km depth, which limits the
length of
the ground surface temperature history reconstruction by this
method to only
the last few centuries, the authors studied a borehole extending
to more
than 5 km depth, allowing them to reconstruct an 80,000-year
history of
ground surface temperature. This borehole was located in
the Middle Urals
within the western rim of the Tagil subsidence (58°24' N,
59°44'E).
What was learned
The reconstructed temperature history revealed the existence of a
number of
climatic excursions, including the "Holocene Optimum
4000-6000 years ago,
Medieval Warm Period with a culmination about 1000 years ago and
Little Ice
Age 200-500 years ago." Furthermore, the mean
temperature of the Medieval
Warm Period was determined to be more elevated above the mean
temperature of
the past century than the mean temperature of the Little Ice Age
was reduced
below that of the past century.
What it means
Once again, we have real-world evidence for the reality of the
Medieval Warm
Period, as well as its dominance over the past century in terms
of its much
greater warmth, which flies in the face of the contrary claims of
climate
alarmists who strive desperately to make current temperatures
appear
"unprecedented" over the past millennium.
Copyright © 2001. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide
and Global Change
===========
(5) LITTLE ICE AGE - EUROPE
>From CO2 Science Magazine, 19 September 2001
http://www.co2science.org/subject/e/summaries/europeiceage.htm
The Little Ice Age was a time of distressful climate in Europe.
Working with
a sediment core retrieved from Lake Atnsjoen, Nesje et al. (2001)
developed
a 4500-year record of river floods in eastern Norway. Following
"a period of
little flood activity around the Medieval period
(AD1000-1400)," which
coincided with reduced regional glacier activity, they documented
"a period
of the most extensive flood activity" that resulted from the
"post-Medieval
climate deterioration characterized by lower air temperature,
thicker and
more long-lasting snow cover, and more frequent storms associated
with the
'Little Ice Age'."
This same pattern of climate progression was documented by Andren
et al.
(2000), who studied a sediment core obtained from the Bornholm
Basin in the
southwestern Baltic Sea. Their data revealed the existence of a
period of
high primary productivity at approximately AD 1050, followed by
what they
call the Recent Baltic Sea Stage, which began at about AD 1200.
This
climatic transition was characterized by "a major decrease
in warm water
taxa in the diatom assemblage and an increase in cold water taxa,
indicating
a shift towards a colder climate." They also note that
the tropical and
subtropical marine planktonic species of the Medieval Warm Period
"cannot be
found in the present Baltic Sea," indicative of the
likelihood that that
part of the world has yet to fully recover from the dramatic
chill of the
Little Ice Age.
Bodri and Cermak (1999) studied the same period of time via a set
of 98
boreholes drilled within the borders of the Czech Republic. They
too
documented "the existence of a medieval warm epoch lasting
from 1100-1300
AD," which they described as "one of the warmest
postglacial times." They
also noted that during the main phase of the Little Ice Age, from
1600-1700
AD, "all investigated territory was already subjected to
massive cooling,"
and that "the observed recent warming may thus be easily a
natural return of
climate from the previous colder conditions back to a
'normal'."
Similar conclusions were reached by Filippi et al. (1999), who
studied a
sediment core obtained from Lake Neuchatel in the western Swiss
Lowlands at
the foot of the Jura Mountains. Their data indicate that
mean annual air
temperature likely dropped by about 1.5°C between the Medieval
Warm Period
(MWP) and the Little Ice Age (LIA). In addition, they say
"the warming
during the 20th century does not seem to have fully compensated
the cooling
at the MWP-LIA transition," noting that during the Medieval
Warm Period mean
annual air temperatures were "on average higher than at
present."
Similar observations have been made by Keigwin (1996), based on
data
obtained from beneath the Sargasso Sea, and Bond et al. (1997),
based on
work carried out in the North Atlantic. Citing Keigwin,
Filippi et al. note
that "sea surface temperature (SST) reconstructions show
that SST was ca.
1°C cooler than today about 400 years ago and ca. 1°C warmer
than today
during the MWP." Citing Bond et al., they note that
the MWP and LIA are
merely the most recent manifestations of "a pervasive
millennial-scale
coupled atmosphere-ocean climate oscillation" that occurs
independently of
atmospheric CO2 variations.
These many observations all weaken the climate-alarmist claim
that the
"unprecedented" warming of the past century is, first
of all, unprecedented,
and secondly, that it is due to the historical rise in the air's
CO2
content. Likewise, the report of D'Orefice et al. (2000),
who studied a
wealth of historical evidence to derive a history of the post-LIA
shrinkage
of Europe's southernmost glacier and found it to be amazingly
similar to the
history of the retreat of a number of glaciers in southern Chile
(see our
Journal Review The Demise of the Little Ice Age in Chile), flies
in the face
of the climate alarmists' claim that these climatic events were
not global
in extent.
As evidence continues to accumulate, the worn-out claims of the
climate
alarmists are looking more and more like what their name implies:
climate
alarmism, an unabashed form of scaremongering based on a flimsy
foundation
riddled with massive cracks and holes.
References
Andren, E., Andren, T. and Sohlenius, G. 2000. The
Holocene history of the
southwestern Baltic Sea as reflected in a sediment core from the
Bornholm
Basin. Boreas 29: 233-250.
Bodri, L. and Cermak, V. 1999. Climate change of the
last millennium
inferred from borehole temperatures: Regional patterns of
climatic changes
in the Czech Republic - Part III. Global and Planetary
Change 21: 225-235.
Bond, G., Showers, W., Cheseby, M., Lotti, R., Almasi, P.,
deMenocal, P.,
Priori, P., Cullen, H., Hajdes, I. and Bonani, G.
1997. A pervasive
millennial-scale climate cycle in the North Atlantic: The
Holocene and late
glacial record. Science 278: 1257-1266.
D'Orefice, M., Pecci, M., Smiraglia, C. and Ventura, R.
2000. Retreat of
Mediterranean glaciers since the Little Ice Age: Case study of
Ghiacciaio
del Calderone, central Apennines, Italy. Arctic, Antarctic,
and Alpine
Research 32: 197-201.
Filippi, M.L., Lambert, P., Hunziker, J., Kubler, B. and
Bernasconi, S.
1999. Climatic and anthropogenic influence on the stable
isotope record
from bulk carbonates and ostracodes in Lake Neuchatel,
Switzerland, during
the last two millennia. Journal of Paleolimnology 21:
19-34.
Keigwin, L.D. 1996. The Little Ice Age and Medieval
Warm Period in the
Sargasso Sea. Science 274: 1504-1508.
Nesje, A., Dahl, S.O., Matthews, J.A. and Berrisford, M.S.
2001. A ~
4500-yr record of river floods obtained from a sediment core in
Lake
Atnsjoen, eastern Norway. Journal of Paleolimnology 25:
329-342.
Copyright © 2001. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide
and Global Change
===============
(6) LITTLE ICE AGE - AFRICA
>From CO2 Science Magazine, 12 September 2001
http://www.co2science.org/subject/a/summaries/africaiceage.htm
Paleoclimate reconstructions clearly demonstrate a Little Ice Age
influence
on African climate during the 14th through 19th centuries. One of
the more
pronounced features of this influence was a decline in
temperatures. Johnson
et al. (2001), for example, report that colder conditions were
observed
between 1570 and 1820 in tropical Africa. Huffman (1996) reports
it was also
colder in southern Africa between 1300 and 1800 A.D.; and
according to
Holmgren et al. (2001) and Tyson et al. (2000), the magnitude of
this Little
Ice Age cooling reached about 1°C.
In addition to bringing colder temperatures, data from equatorial
east
Africa suggest the Little Ice Age wreaked havoc on the hydrologic
cycle as
well. Nicholson and Yin (2001), for example, report
widespread "drought and
desiccation" accompanied by low lake levels from the late
1700s to about
1830. "Lake Naivash," they state, "was reduced to
a puddle ... Lake Chad was
desiccated ... Lake Malawi was so low that local inhabitants
traversed dry
land where a deep lake now resides ... Lake Rukwa [was]
completely
desiccated ... Lake Chilwa, at its southern end, was very low and
nearby
Lake Chiuta almost dried up." Similar severe drought
episodes were noted
for equatorial east Africa by Verschuren et al. (2000), who
report on three
periods of prolonged dryness (1390-1420, 1560-1625 and 1760-1840)
that were
"more severe than any recorded drought of the twentieth
century."
With respect to the cause or causes of the Little Ice Age and its
influence
on African climate, Tyson et al. (2000) note that the coldest
point of the
Little Ice Age corresponded in time with the Maunder Minimum of
sunspot
activity and Verschuren et al. (2000) similarly note that
"all three severe
drought events [in east Africa] of the past 700 years were
broadly coeval
with phases of high solar radiation, and the intervening periods
of
increased moisture were coeval with phases of low solar
radiation." Hence,
it is likely that solar radiation played an important role in
African
climate during the Little Ice Age.
Regardless of its cause or causes, it is important to note that
the Little
Ice Age was not localized to the mid- to upper-latitudes of the
Northern
Hemisphere, but that its influence was felt as far away as
southern Africa
in the Southern Hemisphere, contrary to the claims of climate
alarmists who
try desperately to convince the world otherwise in their quest to
portray
the putative warming of the last two decades as unprecedented
and,
therefore, of anthropogenic origin.
References
Holmgren, K., Tyson, P.D., Moberg, A. and Svanered, O.
2001. A preliminary
3000-year regional temperature reconstruction for South
Africa. South
African Journal of Science 97: 49-51.
Huffman, T.N. 1996. Archaeological evidence for
climatic change during the
last 2000 years in southern Africa. Quaternary
International 33: 55-60.
Johnson, T.C., Barry, S., Chan, Y. and Wilkinson, P.
2001. Decadal record
of climate variability spanning the past 700 yr in the Southern
Tropics of
East Africa. Geology 29: 83-86.
Nicholson, S.E. and Yin, X. 2001. Rainfall conditions
in equatorial East
Africa during the Nineteenth Century as inferred from the record
of Lake
Victoria. Climatic Change 48: 387-398.
Tyson, P.D., Karlen, W., Holmgren, K. and Heiss, G.A.
2000. The Little Ice
Age and medieval warming in South Africa. South African
Journal of Science
96: 121-126.
Verschuren, D., Laird, K.R. and Cumming, B.F. 2000.
Rainfall and drought
in equatorial east Africa during the past 1,100 years.
Nature 403: 410-414.
Copyright © 2001. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide
and Global Change
===========
(7) A SOLAR-INFLUENCED LITTLE ICE AGE AND MEDIEVAL WARM PERIOD IN
TROPICAL
VENEZUELA
>From CO2 Science Magazine, 12 September 2001
http://www.co2science.org/journal/2001/v4n37c3.htm
Reference
Haug, G.H., Hughen, K.A., Sigman, D.M., Peterson, L.C. and Rohl,
U. 2001.
Southward migration of the intertropical convergence zone through
the
Holocene. Science 293: 1304-1308.
What was done
The authors examined the titanium and iron concentrations of an
ocean
sediment core taken from a depth of 893 meters in the Cariaco
Basin on the
Northern Shelf of Venezuela (10°42.73'N, 65°10.18'W) to infer
variations in
the hydrologic cycle over northern South America over the past
14,000 years.
What was learned
Titanium and iron concentrations were lower during the Younger
Dryas cold
period between 12.6 and 11.5 thousand years ago, corresponding to
a weakened
hydrologic cycle with less precipitation and runoff. During
the Holocene
Optimum (10.5 to 5.4 thousand years ago), however, concentrations
of these
metals remained at or near their highest values, suggesting wet
conditions
and an enhanced hydrologic cycle for over five thousand
years. Closer to
the present, the largest century-scale variations in
precipitation are
inferred in the record between approximately 3.8 and 2.8 thousand
years ago,
as the amounts of these metals in the sediment record varied
widely over
short time intervals. Higher precipitation was noted during the
Medieval
Warm Period from 1.05 to 0.7 thousand years ago, followed by
drier
conditions associated with the Little Ice Age (between 550 and
200 years
ago).
What factor(s) might best explain the regional changes in
precipitation
inferred from the Cariaco metals' records of the past 14,000
years?
According to the authors, "these regional changes in
precipitation are best
explained by shifts in the mean latitude of the Atlantic
Intertropical
Convergence Zone," which, in turn, "can be explained by
the Holocene history
of insolation, both directly and through its effect on tropical
Pacific sea
surface conditions."
What it means
The results of this study add further credence to the climate
realist claim
that both the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period were
global
climatic anomalies, not limited to the mid- and upper-latitudes
of the
Northern Hemisphere. Indeed, both events were strong enough to
exert a
measurable influence in the Northern Hemisphere tropics.
Furthermore, this
study demonstrates the important influence of solar variations on
climate.
Copyright © 2001. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide
and Global Change
==========
(8) GLOBAL WARMING FACTS, CONSENSUS MELT AWAY
>From TechCentralStation, 1 October 2001
http://www.techcentralstation.com/EnviroExtra.asp?id=79
By: Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas, Co-Host, Tech Central
Station
The exaggeration over the supposed scientific consensus on the
human cause
of global warming continues, even as the evidence that the
underlying data
supposedly proving a human connection melts away.
In the July 20 Science, three British researchers attempted to
defend the
scientific integrity of the joint World Meteorological
Organization and
United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
Third
Assessment Reports.
That's hardly a surprise. After all, these scientists shared
authorship for
both the assessment reports' Summary for Policymakers and the
Technical
Summary. But their defense crossed into hyperbole when they
claimed:
"Individual authors can always make assumptions that may be
controversial in
order to explore their implications, but IPCC reports, which are
subject to
a long and exhaustive review process, do not have the luxury. ...
The IPCC
is a cautious body, and if evidence is not available in the
peer-reviewed
literature to support a statement, it will not make it, no matter
how great
the interest in that statement might be."
These authors would have people believe that the IPCC makes no
controversial
claims and fully accounts for the uncertainties and the unknowns.
The
science, in short, about climate change is settled. And as the
summary for
policymakers proclaimed: "There is new and stronger evidence
that most of
the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to
human
activities [i.e., the anthropogenic greenhouse gases, mainly
carbon
dioxide]."
But this claim is empty. There is stronger evidence that it is
not mankind
that has caused global warming. It takes some hefty manipulation
and
illogical explanation of the data to show mankind has contributed
anything
at all.
One key problem lies in the Technical Summary when it attempts to
use
surface temperatures and those of the troposphere, that layer of
air up to 5
miles above the surface, to demonstrate human-caused warming.
According to all the computer models, the troposphere temperature
should
warm faster than the surface air if carbon dioxide, the main
greenhouse gas
produced by man's burning fossil fuels, is really the culprit.
It's a matter
of physics. The more moist and warmer surface air is less
affected by
increases in CO2 than the less moist and cooler upper air. At the
higher
level CO2 both radiates energy back into space and down to the
surface air
to be absorbed.
The IPCC's Technical Summary, written in part by the three
British
scientists, claims that the temperature trends since 1958 for the
lowest 5
miles of atmosphere and the surface are "in good agreement,
... with a
warming of about 0.1 degree C per decade." To demonstrate
this, a chart
plotting the temperatures from 1958 to present is shown.
The close agreement, if it existed, would not prove human-caused
warming. As
noted, the computer simulations forecast a greater warming for
the
troposphere than the surface. At the same time - as climate
researchers know
- a straight trend line as the Technical Summary provides is not
the proper
way to look at the data. This is especially so in this case as
the starting
point was cool, affected by Mount Agung's volcanic eruption. The
end point
is unusually warm, with the natural and cyclical 1997 - 98 El
Niño event
temporarily exaggerating warming at the end of the century.
But that's not all. As climate experts know, there was a
step-like shift in
temperatures in the northern Pacific in 1976-77. It was strong
enough to
elevate global air temperatures both near the surface and in the
troposphere. Climate models do not explain this abrupt Pacific
climate
shift.
This step-like rise argues against human-caused warming, which
the computer
models say should be a gradual trend over decades, not a jump
within a year
or two. Recent research results suggest that the 1976-77 climate
shift is
not unique. Instead, the Pacific alternately warms and cools
about every two
decades, according to recorded tree ring changes of the past few
hundred
years. And climate researchers have noted that the Northern
Pacific
temperatures since the summer of 1998 appear to be returning to
lower
levels.
Such measurements suggest the resulting Pacific and global
climate shifts
are very unlikely to be caused by man and his burning of fossil
fuels.
That, though, is not the only fact that the Technical Summary's
distortion
of the temperature record glosses over.
The Summary finds a contradiction to the idea of human induced
warming:
"Since the beginning of the satellite record in 1979, the
temperature data
from both satellites and weather balloons show a warming in the
global
middle-to-lower troposphere at a rate of approximately 0.05 ±
0.1C per
decade. The global average surface temperature has increased
significantly
by 0.15 ± 0.05C/decade." This, as the summary admits, is a
statistically
significant difference. Left unsaid is the fact that the result
runs counter
to the forecast that the troposphere would warm faster than the
surface.
The Summary continues on to an outlandish claim: "By
contrast, during the
period 1958 to 1978, surface temperature trends were near zero,
while trends
for the lowest 8 km (5 miles) of the atmosphere were near 0.2
C/decade."
If this were true, then those who have claimed that the climate
has changed
by human actions would have their strongest proof. For then the
troposphere
did warm and surface temperatures didn't, just as the models
suggest.
Only this just did not happen. The claim is an error, and no
minor one for
such a prestigious and important report.
The troposphere showed no warming trend, or perhaps cooled
slightly, during
that period. The only way to produce a warming trend as large as
stated for
the troposphere warming is to selectively calculate a trend only
between
1964 and 1983, with 1983 affected by a strong El Niño warming
event.
Finally, the IPCC, in making predictions of future warming as
high as 0.58
degrees C per decade, said this rate "is very likely [90-99%
confident] to
be without precedent during at least the last 10,000 [sic] years,
based on
paleoclimate data."
But what is the scientific evidence for that claim? The
troposphere and
surface records together undermine such an alarmist claim.
Perhaps the new IPCC statements contain typos or other sorts of
inadvertent
errors. Yet the IPCC authors in their commentary in Science leave
the
impression there were none that mattered.
There is no clear signal to proclaim scientifically the large
global
climatic effects by man-made carbon dioxide forecast to date. The
many
political reports by the IPCC for the last 11 years or so have
not changed
that. Funding would have been better spent on searching for
understanding of
the climate science itself.
Copyright 2001, TechCentral
============
(9) DANISH SCIENTIST CLAIMS KYOTO TREATY USELESS
>From VOANews, 1 October 2001
http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=137EB02E-F9C2-4C25-AA2D556679715522&Title=Danish%20Scientist%20Claims%20Kyoto%20Treaty%20Useless
Peter Heinlein
Copenhagen
The earth's environment is steadily improving. Global warming is
nothing
much to worry about. The real danger is the Kyoto Treaty, which
will cost
far too much and do almost no good. These are the ideas of a
Danish
professor and former Greenpeace activist who has written a book
titled, "The
Skeptical Environmentalist." The book, which has recently
been published in
English, is causing outrage in the environmental community.
His fans call Bjorn Lomborg an outstanding representative of a
"new breed of
scientists - mathematically-skilled and computer-adept." One
favorable
review predicts his new book will overturn our most basic
assumptions about
the world's environment.
But to his detractors he is not a scientist at all, but a fraud:
a
statistics professor who they claim makes selective use of
statistics to
support a right-wing, anti-environment agenda.
Sitting in his Copenhagen apartment dressed in jeans and a
T-shirt, the
blond, 36 year old backpacker hardly seems like the same Bjorn
Lomborg who
is challenging the very foundations of the green movement. He
explains that
he started out as an environmental activist. "I'm an old
Greenpeace,
left-wing kind of guy and thought basically, yes, things are
getting worse
and worse," he said. "Then I read an interview with
Julian Simon, [the late]
American economist, that tells us things are actually getting
better and
better, contrary to common knowledge. I thought, No, it can't be
true. But
he said 'Go check it yourself,' ... so I'll have to get his book,
to see
that it was probably wrong. And it was sufficiently good, his
book, and it
looked sufficiently substantiated that it would probably be fun
to debunk.
So I got some of my best students together and we did a study
course in the
fall of '97.... We wanted to show, you know, this is entirely
wrong, this is
right-wing American propaganda. As it turned out over the next
couple
months, we were getting debunked for the most part."
Professor Lomborg says the project convinced him that
environmental groups,
the so-called greens, are exaggerating their claims of global
environmental
gloom and doom.
But he says those exaggerations and sometimes, he adds, even
outright
falsehoods, often become part of conventional wisdom, accepted by
a majority
of people because he says green groups seem to enjoy more
credibility than
governments or business lobbies. "Everybody knows
businesses, when they say
'don't worry about the environment,' it may be true, but they
might also
have a good reasons for saying it, profit reasons, ulterior
motives," said
Bjorn Lomborg. "So we're skeptical. But we're not in the
same way skeptical
of green groups, but they are also lobby groups. They also have
an agenda."
One of Professor Lomborg's favorite targets is the Kyoto Treaty
on global
warming.
A host of recent studies predict catastrophic consequences for
the
environment from a rise in global temperatures. The United
Nations Panel on
Climate Change, backed by 3,000 scientists, has thrown its full
weight
behind the argument that global warming is happening faster than
expected,
and that ratification of the Kyoto Protocol is urgent.
Professor Lomborg concedes that global warming is real, but calls
the Kyoto
Treaty a monumental waste of money. "Basically, Kyoto will
do very little to
change global warming," he said. "On the other hand,
Kyoto will be
incredibly expensive. It will cost anywhere from $150-350 billion
a year,
that's a lot of money when compared to the total global aid of
about $50
billion a year. So the idea is, just for one year of Kyoto, we
could give
clean drinking water and sanitation to every single human being
on earth.
This would avoid 2 million deaths a year, and help half a billion
people
from not getting seriously ill each year."
That argument has sparked a furious outcry from
environmentalists. Klaus
Heinberg, a professor of environmental sciences at Denmark's
Roskilde
University, accuses Professor Lomborg of twisting facts and
manipulating
statistics. "His main argument is that we can use the money
we earned
through industrialism to repair all the bad things going
on," he said. "That
kind of argument is dangerous. He made these weird comparisons
that normal
people make in fun, like 'if all children in Europe stopped
eating ice
cream, then we would have enough money for eliminating diseases
in Africa.'
He uses that kind of argument seriously, and he does that in the
Climate and
Kyoto connection."
Professor Lomborg denies being a supporter of U.S. President
George Bush,
and says he is not happy that his conclusions will undoubtedly be
used for
political ends.
President Bush announced in March that Washington was abandoning
the Kyoto
agreement, saying it would place unfair burdens on the U.S.
economy.
Professor Lomborg says it is a scientist's duty to put out the
information,
regardless of the political consequences. "If we start
thinking, we can't
say this because I'm gonna help somebody, for instance Bush,
somebody I
might not like, so I should keep it back, then I become a small
politician
instead of being a scientist," said Professor Lomborg.
"So in that respect,
I say it's an occupational hazard of being a scientist that you
sometimes
end up supporting what you in your own personal, political views,
you would
think of as the wrong people."
Professor Lomborg says he expected a hostile response from green
groups to
his claim that, in fact, the environment is getting better and
better. He
says for that reason, he has been very careful to use only
statistics from
what he says are respected sources.
And what does he say might be a better answer to global warming
than the
Kyoto Treaty? Investing in research into renewable energy
sources. That, he
says, is the long-term solution. As solar energy becomes
economical, the
level of the carbon dioxide emissions that cause warming should
decline
sharply.
Copyright 2001, VOANews
-------------------------------------------------------------------
THE CAMBRIDGE-CONFERENCE NETWORK (CCNet)
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The CCNet is a scholarly electronic network. To
subscribe/unsubscribe,
please contact the moderator Benny J Peiser <b.j.peiser@livjm.ac.uk>.
Information circulated on this network is for scholarly and
educational use
only. The attached information may not be copied or reproduced
for
any other purposes without prior permission of the copyright
holders. The
fully indexed archive of the CCNet, from February 1997 on, can be
found at
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/cccmenu.html
DISCLAIMER: The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed in the
articles
and texts and in other CCNet contributions do not
necessarily reflect the
opinions, beliefs and viewpoints of the moderator of this
network.